Hello, I am new here, and I guess some people will be happy about this and others annoyed, but I am a Bible-believing Christian interested to learn more about why atheists and evolutionists believe what they believe. I say some might be happy as I noticed a couple of posters lamenting the fact that there were no more theists around to talk to. My intent is not to antagonize, endlessly debate, or ridicule. I sincerely want to interact in love and respect, and hopefully understand more clearly where you are coming from. All this to say, I hope I am welcome, that you are open to my questions, and equally open to asking me questions.

Later,

Barley
Oh, and I meant to say, if I am not welcome here, I understand. No hard feelings, I'll just gracefully exit.

Thanks all. I think I need to catch up on the forum posts to get a vibe for the community. I want to be respectful of the current citizens and hopefully avoid any pitfalls that new members undoubtably fall into. Just to react to the first set of replies, first of all thanks for the welcome and friendly advice! I don't think I'll get offended. I've seen and done many doozies in my life so I think I can keep a level head about things. Not sure about the troll thing (I suspect that was a joke ).

Now onto my first question. Obviously when two (or more) people discuss a subject with passionate, opposing views, the potential exists for, shall we say, explosiveness. Can you atheists (I don't mean that in a derogatory way) give me some ideas on what kind of words, attitudes, arguments, etc. really make your blood boil and degenerate the discussion into a flame war? I wouldn't want to say somethng I think is harmless and later discover that it's an atheist pet peeve . Come to think of it, there should be a FAQ for this. Maybe there is one...I'll search.

What makes my blood boil more than anything is being told that, "we cannot understand, it is simply gods will". I can accept a persons choice to believe in a god, but even a theist should be able to admit that just because we don't understand something, it doesn't mean that god intended it that way. When I hear that argument, I usually find myself walking away, since it's usually indicative of a person so afraid of the unknown that no amount of reason can alter their opinion.

As for your question, hmm... Sometimes I get slightly pissed off by accusations that atheists are evil because they don't have any reason to act morally, aside from situations when it's profitable. It rather takes some sort of social maturity and conscience. There are evil and good people among both theists and atheists.

"It's a matter of faith." (Which really means, "I've run out of logical arguments.")

"Things were different back then." (Usually used to justify all manner of evil by deity)

Any implication that science is a "matter of how you interpret the facts," which is the intellectual equivalent of continuing to believe the world is flat just because you've never had a better vantage point.

o Christians (not necessarily you) who assume that because I don't believe in God that I don't believe in anything.

o young-earth creationists (can't tell 'em Nothin')

o "faith-based" anything (faith based charity, faith based works, faith based morals)...the idea that faith makes something better or is necessary is erroneous. Good deeds can be done with or without faith.